The variety and integrity of composer Charlie Barber's ideas are never in doubt. His current Sound Affairs venture fulfils a longstanding ambition to reflect the genius of Michelangelo, with the artist's large-scale but never completed fresco, The Battle of Cascina providing his central inspiration. Yet, as the title suggests, Michelangelo's obsession with human anatomy, fastidiously explored through dissection, is central to Barber's work. Furthermore, the blood of Christ and the Passion, together with resonances of an all-pervasive Catholic church, are bound up in this presentation.

Barber's score uses Renaissance instruments – theorbo, bass recorder, and viola da gamba – alongside contemporary percussion. Setting extracts from the Catholic mass and from Michelangelo's own writings (even including a shopping list), Barber creates a palindromic structure over a series of 17 scenes. The music is atmospheric: the clear tone of James Hall's countertenor solos have a haunting quality, while antiphonal effects created by pre-recorded material, combining voices with brass instruments, add to the spatial experience.

Where this production delivers less successfully is in its choreography. As Michelangelo, dancer Aaron Jeffery is agile, but his sequences in tandem with actor/model Stefano Giglioni feel empty. Giglioni's nude figure may be intended as a physical embodiment of the drawings, but his muscle-bound physique, epitomised by today's bodybuilders, lacks sensuality and seems totally at odds with the flowing movement always implicit in Michelangelo's art. The sculptural element of Alex Robertson's designs are captured on a suspended bas-relief, on to which video images are projected, but it's the music's balance of muscularity and sensitivity that emerges most strongly.

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